Swimming with the Razorfishes

Friday, October 31, 2003

"You don't need perfect code to avoid security problems. There are things we're doing that are making code closer to perfect, in terms of tools and security audits and things like that. But there are two other techniques: one is called firewalling and the other is called keeping the software up to date. None of these problems (viruses and worms) happened to people who did either one of those things." [on IT Business, via Slashdot]

He is such an easy target, so I feel bad commenting on this. Buy, boy howdy; you can't blame your customers and Cisco because Outlook is such a pitri dish. That is just bad PR.

Thursday, October 30, 2003

So the press juggernaut for the new book, America 24/7, seems to be kicking into gear. All around New York's Bryant Park, the project has posted pictures. Fastened to the fence around the park, people are stopping to look at the different images.

But I was looking for a specific photo. Imagine my disappointment when Mike Lee's shot of the Woolworth Building wasn't there. Easily two hundred photos ringing the park, but Mike's was most notably absent.

This is exactly why I prefer NY over LA. This is just so not cool. Yes, they are celebrities. That doesn't mean we should stalk them. Leave them alone. Be cool. They are people, not amusement park attractions.

From an interview with Maj. Gen. Dale Meyerrose, CIO of the U.S. Northern Command:

Q: You said in your presentation that you see Unix as the "Betamax of software." Does that mean it has no place in your IT environment?

A: It currently has a place, and in fact we do use Unix on several of the DOD systems. My thought behind Unix is the march of technology is what has made Unix less and less relevant. The Y2k rollover, in fact, killed lots of Unix. There are a finite number of Unix engineers and software writers in the world, and it is not big enough to support the information technology demands not only of our society, but of the world's economies in general. It costs a lot to train somebody; it takes many years to get them educated. It takes even more for them to get experience so that you can use them, when in fact a lot of software engineering and design is a lot less complicated and in my view will outpace Unix.

Huh? A finite number of Unix engineers? Are we to believe that Windows developers come from some alternate, infinite species? Not to mention the simple-minded implication that more developers is somehow equated with better developers.

Call me conservative, but if the lives of people depend on an operating system being stable, I'd prefer one that doesn't throw screen rendering, web serving, and whatever else needs speed in some silly marketing-driven benchmark result directly into the kernel space.

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

This made me think of Alan Cooper's mental model vs. physical model concept. From a message board for photographers, talking about new features in MacOS X 10.3:

"I was at a demo of Panther just over a week ago and man did it ever have some cool things. The F10 and F9 buttons were used to get instant proof sheets on the screen of whatever was running on the machine whether it was numerous programs or 10 pictures in Photoshop."